Monday, March 28, 2011

Stir Crazy

How is the weather where you are? Where I am it is still SNOWING! Like a lot of it. At this rate, I don’t think we will see green grass until July. I know, the weather is generally pretty crappy all over the place right now, but seriously, it is almost April! March came in and is leaving like a freaking lion. To make matters worse, with the whole “spring ahead” of our clocks a few weeks back, when it’s 8:30 p.m., it’s still light outside, and there is snow on the ground. I just can’t reconcile that. And the clothes, the cute, brightly colored, opened toed shoes kind of clothes that are out right now. I’m still wearing my Uggs and a parka. Also, I’m getting really sick of the bottom of my pants getting soaking wet from the snow, having a permanently dirty car, and tracking snow and gravel into my house. It’s getting beyond ridiculous.

So because the weather has been total garbage, I have been spending a lot of time indoors. I have caught up on a lot of reading. I love books – and not just cook books - almost as much as I love television. I finished reading Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani. Such a good book! If you haven’t read it, I totally recommend it. I have a soft spot for books that take place in India or the Middle East for some reason. It seems like there is more history and the love (and hatred) of the characters is always that much more epic. Either way, this one gets my vote.

After finishing that book, I felt I had filled my ‘serious’ quota for a while and wanted a quick and easy read. So next I tackled the Aurora Teagarden Series by Charlaine Harris (her other series – the Sookie Stackhouse Novels are the basis of HBOs True Blood). Oh my goodness. These books are ridiculously easy to read, totally vapid, and I’ve usually solved the mystery by the middle of the book, but such fun. I love Aurora, the main character – she’s kind of a dork, sarcastic and self deprecating so I am totally endeared to her. Plus she works in a library, which was one of my dream jobs as a child. I finished the first two this weekend, and started reading the third one today. Like I said, they are very quick reads.

I also picked up Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. So far so good, but I’m only about half way through that one. Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon are going to star in the movie adaptation of the book. Picturing Edward Cullen falling in love with Elle Woods is really throwing me off my game. I have a hard time removing people from the characters that they’ve played. Obviously.

So that’s what I’ve been up to while waiting for the seasons to finally change. Don't judge me too harshly with the Aurora books. I'm not really that shallow. I read good books too, I promise. How have you been dealing with our extended winter? Have you read any good books lately? Share your must reads in the comments!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Happy Belated Birthday!

Yesterday was March 23 – besides being Keri Russell’s birthday (oh Felicity, why did you ever waste your time with Noel?), it is a rather insignificant day in history. However! It was also the one year anniversary of this very blog. Can you believe it? I know, I certainly can’t. I am working on a post about some reading I’ve been doing lately but wanted to acknowledge this milestone (ha!) with a quick post.

I understand that I still need to be more consistent and post more frequently (in one year I only have twenty posts), and I’d love to have more readers, (seriously, if you are reading this, please do me a favor and say hello in the comments. It will make my day!), but the fact that I even remember my password to Blogger speaks volumes at how far I’ve come from previous attempts. Thanks for reading, thanks for posting in the comments, thanks for coming back after I’ve taken a huge hiatus, and thanks for allowing me to snark on. I’m off to celebrate with a cupcake!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

March Madness

I think I have mentioned in the past how my sisters and I have a ‘business’ which is in quotations because we don’t really make a huge amount of money off of it, but are very enthusiastic about it nonetheless. We do baked goods, Greek desserts, and we’ve recently expanded our empire (ha!) to digital and print invitations as well.

Well, let me tell you – March has been a busy month for us. With actual paying customers (this is another flaw of our business plan – everyone gets a deal!). It’s like we can’t be stopped!

Check out some of our stuff:

Thursday, March 10, 2011

One of My Favorites - Deadwood

Look, I understand I’m not Oprah, I don’t have a cult like following (seriously, I haven’t even cracked 10 followers), and nobody asked my opinion, but there are some things that I feel duty bound to share with you because I find them so awesome. My favorites in life mostly consist of irrelevant things, like a TV show, a recipe or a book, but no matter how insignificant, I will be sharing it with you.

Deadwood. I know it has been off the air for five years, but can we all have a shot of whiskey in honor of this great show? Have you seen it? I watched the first season with my sisters in one weekend a few summers ago. Needless to say, our daily level of profanity usage increased tenfold by the season finale.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it takes place in the Black Hills of a Dakota mining camp. It is 1876 and the camp is primarily made up of a bunch of undesirable people that you should be wary of, but somehow find yourself rooting for. Al Swearengen is the owner of the Gem Saloon and one of the main characters, a true antihero if there ever was one. Let me try and paint a picture. Think of any villainous father from a Disney cartoon and cover him with dirt and that’s physically what he looks like. Next give him the personality of Tony Soprano, with even less regard and value for the fairer sex, and for his final act, give him the strategic prowess of the Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae (that the Spartans eventually lost, is sort of foreshadowing. Oops – spoiler alert) and that’s kind of who he is in a nutshell. He is also funny, clever and always looking for an angle. I love him. His folly is Seth Bullock.

Bullock came riding into town with his partner Sol Star to open a hardware business, and carry on one of the greatest bromances in the history of television. He is a good guy but can be hard to like. Also, he is played by (one of) my television boyfriends, Timothy Olyphant, so that’s all you really need to know about him. Seriously.

The point is, the show has a lot of interesting characters (some based on real people in history, others completely made up) that you find yourself invested in. It is a smart show, so you have to keep up and pay attention, and it is a pretty show to look at, minus all the dirt everyone seems to be constantly covered in. The dresses and even the way people talk has a nice ring to it (not counting the over forty times the F word was used in the pilot episode). Perhaps I’m making it seem more whimsical than it is – I’ve warned you about the profanity – but I just love the story they are telling, and the entire cast of supporting characters are just as important as the main characters.

Anyways, the show is dead and gone, but you should catch up on DVD, HBO, online, or wherever. You won’t be sorry. In the words of Al Swearengen, “Welcome to fuckin' Deadwood! Can be... combative!”

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Namaste

So I decided that I would postpone my new year's resolution until February
- when everyone else was giving up on their resolutions, I'd just be
gearing up for mine – and it would seem like I’m ultra committed. It seemed to work. I found a hot yoga studio near my house that had just opened, and decided to give it a shot. My initial plan was to hit the 6:30 am class for my first time - I didn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of young college girls who were smoking hot, and actually knew what the heck they were doing and instead preferred to go at the crack of dawn where the chance of being seen in my outdated yoga wear by some judge-y twenty year old was significantly smaller. Unfortunately that didn't work out as a friend strong armed me into going with her to the 8 p.m. class - the exact class I was trying to avoid. Either way, we went, and it was pretty awesome. Beyond the fact that I had no clue what I was doing, and there were close to 50 people in the room, it was actually pretty good.

Have you tried it before? Personally, I like how quiet it is in the room, and how I actually feel like I’m working out – after 75 minutes I am drenched, I can’t imagine doing yoga in a room that isn’t 40 degree – it seems like it would be pointless. And the instructors. Oh the glorious instructors. They are so hippy and dippy and not my style at all, but the one instructor has this hypnotic voice, that puts me in a trance every class. She speaks really quickly and low, and then all of a sudden super loud. For example, if we are in tree pose, she will say “Step one is to stay here with your hands at heart center. Thatisabsolutelyfine.Listentoyourbody. If you’ve found your balance, move your hands above your head. If you’ve found balance, extend your gaze to the ceiling. Lift your hands higher. Reach, your hands higher for one, lift your gaze to the ceiling for two and higher for three.” She’s so wild.

That being said, there are some things I can’t behind and/or don’t understand.

When the instructor says to “bring awareness to your breathing”, what the hell does she mean? It’s like, okay, I am breathing, I know I’m breathing because I’m still alive, so what more beyond that do you need? Or the other one is “breathe into your back/hips/core/etc.” HOW ON EARTH DO YOU DO THAT? I’m sorry for yelling, but when I breathe, I think I’m breathing into my lungs, no? Also, what is with men not wearing shirts in the class?
Why do they feel that is appropriate? There is one guy that is always shirtless and it annoys me even more because he wears bicycle shorts on top of everything else. Think about that. Bicycle, spandex-y shorts with no shirt. I don't need to see that lethal combination. No one does. Do us all a favor and throw on a t-shirt. Everyone is hot. You are the only one with no shirt.

I’ve accepted that I’m probably doing half of the poses incorrectly, will never figure out the proper way to breathe, my clothes are highly outdated, and there is a good chance I’ve probably developed some sort of athletes foot from walking around the studio barefoot all the time. Even still, I think I will continue to stick with it – I can do a headstand again! And I’m thisclose to doing a full wheel (sorry for the somewhat graphic nature of that link). If you haven’t tried it, you should – it really is a lot of fun (minus the shirtless men).